


A Light for Another's Dark

by p1013



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Ron Weasley, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Death Eaters, Depressed Harry Potter, Harry Potter Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Multiple, Psychometry, Self-Hating Draco Malfoy, TasteofSmut 2020, Touch, Touch-Starved Draco Malfoy, Unspeakable Draco Malfoy, Unspeakable Hermione Granger, mention of murder-suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:47:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24577072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/p1013/pseuds/p1013
Summary: Every touch leaves a memory. For Unspeakable Draco Malfoy, this is literal. When Harry Potter goes missing, Draco is asked to use his ability to Read the memories embedded in the objects he touches to help find Potter. While following his trail, Draco’s only certain of one thing: what he learns about Harry Potter affects Draco's life more than he wants to admit, and, more worryingly, not just his life, but his heart.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 70
Kudos: 555
Collections: Taste of Smut Fest





	A Light for Another's Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZandraGorin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZandraGorin/gifts).



> Potentially triggering spoilers in the end note.

It's almost always dark in the Department of Mysteries. There's no explanation for the phenomenon, or at least not a publicized one, but the natural state of the Department is one of charcoal shadows and hidden corners. Scholars have postulated that it has to do with the nature of the Department itself, the intense focus on the unknown manifesting as a lack of light. Some more pragmatic folks blame it on the Department being buried beneath the earth, crowded in on all sides by dirt and weighed down by the Ministry above. Most agree that the truth is likely somewhere between the two.

But occasionally—when there are only a handful of Unspeakables in the hallways or sitting in their offices, contemplating Love and Time and History—magic whips through that dim, black space and lights it up like the surface of a sun. It burns through everything with a white-hot brightness that leaves spots in their vision for hours after. There's no warning, no explanation. The light is as much of a mystery as the dark, but there's one constant with it.

When the Department of Mysteries blazes with light, new magic is born.

That's how Draco gets "recruited" into the Department. If it were up to the Ministry, he'd still be in Azkaban with his father and the other Death Eaters, left to rot like the carcass of a great, evil beast. But there's a flash of light in the Department, and Draco suddenly can't touch anything without being overcome with visions, and they drag him, kicking and screaming, from the North Sea to Whitehall, and a different kind of prison entirely. Though they give him the title and the robes and the office, they don't give him any of the responsibilities that come with it. He's a tool for them as much as he had been for the Dark Lord, and though the Ministry Building is much more comfortable than a jail cell, he's still trapped inside.

So, the Department of Mysteries is dark, except when it isn't. Draco is an Unspeakable, except when he isn't. And his memories are his own, except when they aren't.

* * *

As Draco rummages through his desk, searching for a quill, he hates his gloves and how they limit his sense of touch. It would be so much easier if he could just _feel_ the damn thing in the drawer, but instead, he has to pull it all the way open so he can see what his hands touch, scattering the collection of odds and ends inside heedlessly about until he finds the slim box of quills tucked in the back corner. He knows his life would be made so much easier if he just took the time to organize things, but as he pulls out the quills and slams the drawer shut, the stubborn part of him that refuses to change his life entirely because of this damn magic screams _no._

His fashion sense certainly hasn’t suffered for the sudden addition of gloves to every outfit. His pair today are thin kid leather in a fawn color only a few shades darker than his own skin. They're open-backed with an elegant pattern of holes leading to the fingers. He chose them as a concession to the unseasonably warm May weather they're having, though they're also stylish and a lovely contrast to the dark color of his Unspeakable robes. Those are hanging on the hook by his door, though, as the suit he’s wearing beneath them deserves to be seen. White shirt, with a tan paisley waistcoat over top, and matching trousers with a sharp crease down the front. His brown Chelsea boots are polished to a bright sheen, and he takes comfort in knowing that while he may not be welcome with open arms, he at least looks startlingly attractive buried in the Department's smallest, most remote office.

Though he's an Unspeakable by title and trade, there's very little that he actually does for the Department of Mysteries. For one thing, his ability is mentally and emotionally taxing, so his bosses don't force him to use it very often, uncertain if there's a limit to his power. It's been a running theme, those above him not understanding what it is, exactly, that Draco can do. His superiors are a pair of Unspeakables whose names he can never remember—not because he's bad with names, but because they've spent so long in Thought that they've managed to lose them; Draco's not entirely sure _they_ know who they are anymore. He generally thinks of them as Aye and Bea, as if giving them any kind of name might make a difference. He’d tried something more name-like when he started here, but sobriquets rolled off the pair like water off a duck’s back. These are the closest things to names Draco has managed to get to stick.

It helped, at the time, to hyperfocus on their names, rather than their responsibility for and power over him. When he first arrived, the pair of them went back and forth for weeks, trying to figure out if he should be assigned to Thought or Time or one of the emotions before looping back around again. Eventually, they'd given up, blamed the ephemeral nature of magic on making him undefinable, and tucked him away like an unwanted gift. While they'd been frustrated by it, Draco finds a sense of freedom with being forgotten. It offers him an additional sense of anonymity. Even in the Department, he's an unknown. He can hide here, only coming out when his particular skills are needed before he disappears back into the small, enclosed comfort of his office to do whatever the fuck he wants until he's needed again.

Today, he's working his way through back issues of _The Quibbler's_ crossword puzzles. The first one he completed used the exact same clue for every line, though the answers were wildly different. This one seems to be focused on sixteenth century witches and wizards, though more specifically their shoe sizes, and Draco's been staring at the first clue for a full two minutes before he moves onto the next one, the end of the quill already tucked into the corner of his mouth so he can chew at it thoughtfully.

The knock at his door startles him, but it's the person who pushes it open that really has Draco sitting up, his puzzle set aside for a new one.

"Hermione Granger-Weasley." He says her name tentatively, like it's a hippogriff waiting to attack. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Her hair is tamed in a plait today, though a few strands have wrestled their way free. Her robes, a blue so deep they're almost black, shimmer as she hesitates on his doorstep. "Do you have a moment?"

"What do you need, Granger?" He leans back in his chair, arms crossed.

She frowns at him, then hurries to the chair on the other side of his desk as if she's rushing into battle. When she sits, she does it with a ramrod straight back, her brown eyes intense and somehow ashamed.

"I need your help." She glances at his hands, then back to his face. "Someone's gone missing."

"Hundreds of people go missing every day, Granger. You'll need to be more specific."

"I'm not sure you'll want to help me if I tell you who it is."

"Your husband, then?"

She huffs out a laugh, her posture easing a little with the joke. "No." She bites her lip, but doesn't continue.

"Spit it out, please."

"It's Harry."

Draco feels cold. "What?"

"Harry." She slumps in her chair before rubbing at the bridge of her nose. Her voice cracks when she speaks again. "He's been missing for almost three weeks. Ron's been doing his best to track him down, but the Aurors haven't been able to trace him past his house, and…" Her eyes are shining when she looks at him. "We've run out of options, Malfoy."

"I haven't seen anything in the papers."

"Kinglsey's keeping it quiet. We've been running a cover story that he's on holiday, but if he's still missing for much longer, it's going to fall apart." She swallows, looks away. "This is the only thing we haven't tried."

His hands clench. "You know what you're asking of me."

"I know." She has the decency to sound apologetic, as if her tangential knowledge of his magic is some great accident rather than part of her tireless need to learn.

"You know what it takes."

"I do." He can see her steeling herself in the way her shoulders stiffen and her mouth firms. "Please."

A small, petty voice that sounds so much like his eleven-year-old self starts screaming. Why should he suffer through this for Granger? For Weasley? For bloody Potter? This is his curse, his burden, and how dare she ask him to put it to use to save his enemy. How _dare_ she come into his space, his life, and put this request before him like a double-edged sword ready to draw his blood.

He quiets that voice quickly. That voice didn't spend eight months in Azkaban. It didn't hear Potter speak for Draco at his trial, little good that it did him in the end. It didn't have to limp its way through relearning how to live without touch, without contact, while simultaneously finding a new sense of purpose, of penance, from the loss. A burst of magic shattered his life and dragged the broken pieces back together, and though it's chipped and rough, it's his life, and he owes the magic something in return.

"All right, Granger. Tell me what happened."

* * *

Twelve Grimmauld Place is nothing like what Draco expects. He has vague memories of it from his childhood, but none of them bring any particularly powerful emotions to the forefront of his mind. There's the scent of mothballs and dust, his Great Aunt Walburga's overly soft body and the way her skin felt like dry and padded parchment, her vicious house-elf with the too-large nose. Nothing positive, but nothing concretely awful enough for his five-year-old self to have latched onto any part of it in particular.

Walking into the place now, with the door surrounded by protection spells placed by Aurors and carefully marked paths covering the floor, he has a moment where he feels like he's floating outside of his body. It's surreal, seeing a crime scene laid over top of his indistinct childhood memories.

"Unspeakable Malfoy?" Draco's name startles him back to reality, and he realizes that there's a junior Auror standing off to the side, his mouth twisted into a confused frown as he stares at Draco. "Are you coming in, sir?"

"Of course." He walks through the threshold and starts taking in the scene with more focus. "What's your name?"

"Murphy. Sir."

"Auror Murphy. Walk me through."

"I think Auror Weasley wants to brief you on the case, sir."

Draco takes an exaggerated look around the room. "As I'm afraid I don't _see_ Auror Weasley, why don't you get us started?"

"I'm right here, you prat." Weasley comes hurrying out of the kitchen. His face is as red as his hair, and he waves a stammering Murphy away. "Merlin, Malfoy. You can't be even a little bit patient?"

Draco sniffs. "You and I both know that we'd rather I were somewhere else right now. Since we're in agreement there, I'd like to get this over with as soon as I can." At Weasley's deepening frown, Draco rolls his eyes. "Walk me through this, please, so we can be done and I can pretend I didn't willingly help you."

Weasley mutters to himself, but gestures for Draco to follow him. "Hermione and I are Harry's last known contacts. He came over for dinner almost three weeks ago, then left around 10 PM. He didn't show up for work, and then, when I came to check on him later that day, his house was empty."

"Any signs of a struggle?"

Weasley shakes his head. "No. Door was locked and warded, Floo hadn't been used for a few days before I arrived. Forensics has been through, and they only found magical signatures that should be here, nothing unexpected."

"And you're sure that he didn't leave of his own accord?" Draco looks around the shabby room, taking in the threadbare carpets and sunken couch cushions. "I wouldn't blame him for not wanting to stay here."

"No." Weasley nearly growls the word. "Harry wouldn't take off, not without telling me and Hermione."

Draco wants to laugh, but he holds it back. "Of course not. How foolish of me to think a full-grown man might want some privacy."

"He has enemies," Weasley snaps. "There are people out there who want to hurt him, people who are careful to not leave any tracks. You know the type fairly well, I'd imagine."

Draco ignores the barb and walks farther into the room, then stops by the low table in front of the couch. There's an old copy of _The Prophet_ laying open on it. Even upside down, Draco can make out the headline— _Anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts: Five Years After_ —and the smoking remains of Hogwarts Castle in the picture above it. He reaches down and turns the newspaper around so it's upright, much to the consternation of Auror Murphy who immediately starts squawking about cross-contamination.

"It's fine, I've got gloves on," Draco says quietly, paying more attention to the date and the article than Murphy’s incessant chatter. "Weasley, when did Potter go missing?"

"I already said, Malfoy, three weeks ago—"

"No, not how _long_ ago. The date."

"I…" Weasley frowns, then goes pale. "We saw him on the first of May."

"And you didn't think the date had any connection to him up and disappearing?"

"I wasn't thinking about dates." Weasley's pale face goes a bit green. "It must have been Death Eaters. It was the fifth anniversary of Voldemort's defeat. Perfect timing to kidnap Harry to make a point."

"There were no signs of a break in." Draco gestures to the untidy but relatively undisturbed front room. When Weasley's expression doesn't change, Draco sighs and puts the paper down. "You have something of his you want me to…?" Draco wiggles his gloved fingers.

"Yeah, hold on." Weasley walks out of the room, his color shifting back to its usual reddish tint.

As soon as Weasley leaves, every bit of Draco's bravado evaporates. It's as if Weasley's presence somehow makes Draco's explainable, but with Weasley gone and the junior Auror from the doorway looking at Draco like he's no better than the dirt under his shoe, the irrationality of standing in Potter's living room hits him like a Stunner.

Except, Draco reminds himself, that he is supposed to be here. He may have forced himself to consider it only in the abstract, but his presence in Potter's house is legitimate. It's not the invasion it feels like. But now, with Weasley looking for something for Draco to Read, sick anticipation builds in his stomach. His hands are sweating in his gloves, even with their open backs, but he doesn't dare take them off yet. Instead, he counts his breaths, careful ins and outs, while he waits for Weasley to come back and pretends the other Auror isn't glaring daggers into his back.

It doesn't take Weasley long to return, but Draco's got a thin layer of sweat gathered beneath his collar, and his legs feel weak by the time he returns. When Weasley holds out a small box with the Ministry of Magic seal on the top, Draco nearly vomits.

"I need…" He swallows, tries again. "I need somewhere private. The experience is rather… intense."

"Yeah, all right. Just… Follow me, I guess."

Weasley spins around, leaving Draco to stumble after him, off-center and hating every second of it. The house passes by him in a blur, his vision a little grey around the edges and Weasley's angrily muttered words muffled by a ringing in Draco's ears. The box is clenched in his hands, and though he's wearing his gloves and his skin is nowhere near touching it, he can already feel the memories within it calling out to him, trying to drag him down with them, to lose himself in the remnants of Potter‘s mind.

A door slams, and Draco looks up from his hands to see that he's blindly followed Weasley into a dark, enclosed space. Childhood paranoia tells him to run, but he takes a deep breath and recognizes that they're in a study of some sort, though one that hasn't seen much use in recent years. With a flick of his wand, Weasley lights the lamps, giving the space a bit more warmth than it had a moment before. There's a chair in the corner that doesn't look too dirty, and Draco falls into it gratefully, the small box clasped between his hands.

"You going to open it?" Weasley asks, clearly irritated with Draco's quiet panic.

Draco doesn't respond, but gives into Weasley's demand and flips the box open. Nestled in padded red silk is an Order of Merlin, First Class, with Potter's name carved into it like a scar in metal flesh. Draco swallows down bile again and fights a shiver.

"C'mon, Malfoy, we don't have any time to lose here."

"Why this?" Draco asks, his voice raspy. "It has to be something he touched that day. How do you know…"

"It was on his nightstand. He never has it out, but it was open on his nightstand when we searched the house."

"Right."

He sets the medal in his lap and begins removing the gloves from his shaking fingers. The thin leather sticks, and it takes him a bit of pulling to get them off. Carefully, he folds them over one hand before setting them on the arm of the chair. He doesn't touch anything but his own gloves, long practice and fear keeping his skin far away from anything not belonging to himself.

"You need to leave now," he says to Weasley as he continues to stare at the time bomb in his lap.

"I'm not going anywhere, Malfoy."

"Then I'm not Reading it."

"What?"

He looks up, furious and uncomfortable. "I don't know if your wife has explained to you what this is like for me, if you still get off on my suffering, or if you don't know how to be anything but obstinate. But this is not a pleasant experience, and I will keep what little of my pride is remaining and not have you witness it. Now, if you do not leave, I will."

Weasley opens his mouth, his face red and already asking for a fist to be forcefully applied to the center of it. Draco gets ready to put his gloves back on and do it the favor, but Weasley shuts his mouth and storms from the room. The walls shake when he slams the door shut behind him, and Draco does the same as he fights for breath.

Merlin, he hates this.

The build up to the Reading is always the worst part. The uncertainty, the lack of foreknowledge. In the next minute, Draco could be awash with happy, smiling memories or swept away by grief or something darker. The Department tested the width and breadth of his ability when he first joined, shoving item after item into his sweating and shaking hands with a single-minded purpose that had no concerns for his well-being, only the power locked within the thin skin of his fingertips. He knows what other people's tears, their laughter, their love taste like, and he wants to spit it from his mouth, as if that will somehow clear it from his mind. It never leaves, not completely, and the dread and anticipation boiling within him at the idea of adding Potter's mind to that miasma makes him want to scream at the injustice of it all, that the only way he can have his freedom is to shackle himself to others' emotions for the rest of his life.

Staring at the medal like it'll burn him—because, in all honesty, it will—Draco hesitantly stretches his fingers forward. For a second, he feels cool, engraved metal, a moment of sensation that's purely physical. And then the magic swells, pours through him in an overwhelming rush, and he's gone.

* * *

You remember when they gave you this. Kingsley had pinned it to your robes, his warm eyes filled with unshed tears. He whispered that Albus would've been proud, and you broke a little. You've been breaking a little more every day since then, a slow, inexorable decay that, no matter how hard you try, you haven't been able to stop.

Scrubbing your hands over your face as if they'll shield you from the reality of that medal and all it represents, you force yourself from bed. Dread hangs heavy across your shoulders. Five years, and it still feels like it happened yesterday. Still feels like you lost Fred and Tonks and Remus and Colin and even Snape only a moment ago, and now you're standing in your bedroom in your pants, and you're sobbing so hard, your stomach and chest hurt.

You can't do this, not again. It's too much. They ask too much. Every goddamned year, they want more and more from you, when you've already given everything you have to them and their causes and their Ministry and their grief. And now they're asking for more, and it's not there. It doesn't exist. If you could dredge it up from the silt-stained bottom of your soul, you would, but you can't. It's empty and wasted, and you fold in on yourself, fighting to hold it all in when there's nothing left to hold.

This is why Ginny left. This is why you're alone. This overwhelming pain and your inability to deal with it. You sob, and you fight for breath, and slowly, you come back to yourself, just a bit. You stand. Walk to the bathroom, wash your face. You comb your hair, and brush your teeth, and though you look a little more put together than before, you know there are fine cracks running through all of you right now, waiting for the smallest touch to send you collapsing in on yourself again.

You can't do this.

You set the medal on your nightstand, throw on Muggle clothes, and Disapparate away.

Running, because it's all you have left.

* * *

Draco's throat is tight, and his face is wet with tears. He's hunched over his lap, the medal dropped to the floor by his limp fingers. Potter's grief is overwhelming, even outside of the memory, and a fragment of Potter's sobbing forces its way from Draco's mouth. He prays to gods he doesn't believe in that Weasley won't come in and check on him while he tries to stifle the sound. This is horrifying, this display of uncontained, alien emotion. _This_ is why Draco insists on being alone when he Reads. He never knows what kind of memory he's going to find, and the embarrassment of it all when he's alone would be nothing compared to the shame he'd feel with an audience.

It takes a few minutes for him to calm down and clean his face. He knows the _Scourgify_ will leave his cheeks a bit too pink, but it's better than the sloppy mess he had been, he's certain. The grief is still a lump in his chest, though, one that feels like it will take most of the day to shake free. He puts his gloves on, picks up the medal and puts it away. Then, hoping he doesn't have any sign of what the Reading took from him still smeared across his face, he opens the door and steps into the hallway.

Weasley is leaning against the wall next to the door, and he looks uncomfortable. Not the usual level of uncomfortable that he generally has whenever Draco's around, though. There's no quiet, barely repressed anger. No sign that he'd rather see Draco behind bars than anywhere else. Instead, Weasley's exuding the kind of discomfort you bring to your great-aunt's funeral. It's the uncomfortable that one has when they're forced to witness other people's grief while not feeling it themselves. It's the uncomfortable of surface emotion, masquerading as something deeper.

Which means that Draco didn't do as good a job holding in his sobs as he thought he had. Grimacing, he shoves the medal at Weasley.

"Take it," he says, voice scratchy and still wet. "He left on his own. He'll come back eventually."

"What?" Weasley nearly drops the medal, but manages to catch it before stuffing it into his pocket. Draco brushes past him, but Weasley grabs his arm, stopping Draco fast enough that it makes his shoulder ache. "What the fuck did you say?"

"He left because he wanted to. He's not missing."

"He bloody well is!"

"You may not want to hear it, Weasley, but he left on his own. Now, let me go."

"Fuck you, Malfoy."

Draco smirks. "You're not my type."

"Gentlemen!" Granger's voice rings down the hallway, and Draco and Weasley both turn to face her, surprised. "If you could manage to act like _professionals_ for one moment, we should let Unspeakable Malfoy explain what he saw."

Weasley throws Draco's arm out of his grasp like he's been burnt. Even though it stings from Weasley's too-tight grip, Draco doesn't rub at the ache. "Granger. It's a pleasure to see you again. Why the fuck are you here?"

"Fuck you, too, Malfoy. Stop being a prat, and let's go back inside."

Weasley goes into the room first, Granger trailing after. Draco waits in the hallway, nearly makes a break for it, but then Granger says his name again and he follows, shoulders hunched. As soon as he's through the doorway, he feels echoes of the memory start building. Potter's grief rises in Draco's chest, and even his almost-fight with Weasley isn't enough to beat it back. Draco doesn't take the chair this time, stays as far from it as he can while he fights to keep his composure.

He bloody hates this.

Granger shuts the door quietly. "Now, Malfoy. Tell us what you saw."

"Potter got out of bed. He got dressed. He left." Draco shrugs, like there's nothing more to it than that. "No kidnapping."

"That's crap," Weasley snarls. "You were crying. What're you leaving out?"

Grief and embarrassment roll through him. He clenches his teeth, beats it back down. "Nothing."

"He had to have had a reason," Granger offers gently. "An explanation."

"Not one he thought about before leaving."

"Where'd he go?"

"No idea."

"Goddamnit, Malfoy." Weasley nearly spits the words. "What use are you, then?"

"Ron. We know that Harry wasn't hurt, that he wasn't forced from his home, that he wasn't taken."

"But we don't know where he is! Hermione, this is _Harry_. He wouldn't… abandon everyone like this."

"Maybe you should ask yourself why he felt the need to abandon everyone," Draco says through gritted teeth. "Maybe you should stop thinking about what you _think_ he wants, and ask him instead."

Weasley rounds on him, fists clenched. "Fuck you, Malfoy."

"Very original, Weasley. It's good to see Granger didn't get all of the brains in the relationship," Draco sneers.

"Boys!"

Granger's voice rings out in the small space, and though he's still squared off with Weasley, both of their hands held tight into fists, they don't move closer.

"Malfoy. I know it's hard."

"You don't know anything."

"I _know_." She approaches him carefully before placing a soft hand on his arm. "I know. But we need your help. Harry needs your help."

It twists in him like a blade, and heat gathers in his stomach like pooling blood. "Fine. I'll find him."

Draco doesn't know why he says it. He doesn't know what it is about Weasley's anger or Granger's sympathy that wrings the words from him. Perhaps it's the bit of Potter's mind still living in Draco's, a whispered sense of friendship and family that's lingered like a stain. Whatever the reason, the room falls silent at his words.

"How?" Weasley's voice is gruff.

"How else? Memory."

* * *

It takes a lot of convincing to get Weasley and Granger to leave Draco alone in Potter's home, unsupervised. But eventually, they gather the junior Auror, and the group of them shuffle out of Grimmauld Place like unwelcome family after a too-long holiday visit. When Draco shuts the door behind them, it feels partially like a victory and partially like a very, _very_ bad idea.

When he turns around, he's greeted by the scowling face of a house-elf, his nose familiar like the touch of dry parchment.

"Master Draco," he says, voice rough and annoyed.

"I… yes?"

"You are finding Master Potter?"

"Yes, that's the plan." Draco frowns. "You're asking rather a lot of questions for a house-elf."

"Kreacher is special. Kreacher is a free elf."

Oh, Merlin. Draco sighs. "Is there something you wanted to ask me in particular?"

"When you find Master Potter, tell him that the garden is overgrown again, and it is Master Potter's turn to pull weeds. Kreacher won't be doing Master Potter's chores for him, not this time." He turns his overly large nose up, nods imperiously, then disappears with a crack.

Finally alone and unable to stop himself, Draco takes a moment to have a quiet breakdown in Potter's front room. It starts with laughter, great chest-shaking cackles that put tears in his eyes. Somewhere in the process, though, the amusement turns to something darker, and after sinking to the floor, he presses his forehead to the dingy Persian rug, thankful that all of his skin isn't infested with his magic, only his hands. Draco breathes, hard and heavy, as if it'll force out the ache that Potter's memories have put into his body if he just exhales hard enough. The echo does ease somewhat, and as he slowly comes back to himself—a second display like this in one day is absolutely appalling—he sits back up, resting on his bent knees as he looks around Potter's abysmal home.

Honestly, Draco doesn't need to touch anything to realize that Potter is depressed. Looking around the room, which appears as if someone's spilled weak tea over everything and stained it various shades of the same brown, he can feel it oozing out of the padding in the couch and the cracks in the floorboards. If there were such a thing as "sad chic," Potter would be halfway to it with this place.

Draco stands, takes a deep breath, and starts going through the piles of post and the overcrowded bookshelves in the front room. But other than the newspaper, there isn't anything worth noting, other than Potter's inability to return a letter in a reasonable timeframe and an obnoxious fascination with cheap Muggle paperbacks. Sure, there's at least one title (maybe three) that Draco recognizes from his own library, but he's not going to admit that to anyone. He will absolutely not steal the one with a _very_ intriguing cover illustration and quite a few breaks in the spine.

After all, it's not stealing if he returns it.

He walks through the kitchen, notes the sink piled up with dirty dishes and the grimy hob. The back garden is overgrown, but not as badly as Draco thought it might be considering Kreacher's vehemence. There's a wooden bench swing with a matching side table. An empty tea cup sits there, covered with a thin layer of wet from the humidity. Its bottom is stained with old tea. Draco looks at the leaves remaining there, but he can't make anything out from them. It's as indistinct and depressing as the rest of the house, but it's something that Potter's handled recently. Mouth curved down in dismay, Draco picks up the dirty cup and carries it inside. It clinks quietly when he sets it on the kitchen table before he leaves to continue searching the rest of the house.

He finds a few more items with promise and gathers them all together in the kitchen. There's a book from Potter's nightstand. His Auror robes and pin. A pair of shoes that are so scuffed, the leather is fraying on the toes. Potter's broom. A single white feather tucked into the back corner of his desk, the hollow shaft uncut and the vanes worn.

It's an odd picture of someone's life, this tiny pile of junk. But Draco's magic calls out to each item in turn, sings to the hidden emotions and thoughts worn into their edges. It knows they're present, invisible, waiting, and it wants to draw them out, to force them into the daylight. His magic's desire for recognition and to be used wars with Draco's own hesitancy and distaste for the whole process, and as he sits and stares at these minutia of Potter's life, he feels like he's being pulled in a million directions at once, stretched gossamer-thin between all of them like a spider's web caught in a gale.

He hates to admit it, but it's never been like this before. Yes, Readings take a lot out of him. They drag him through the metaphorical dirt, leaving him tainted with it after. Washing away other people's emotions is far harder than scrubbing a stain out from under his nails, but it feels the same. He's rubbed raw by it, his emotional walls cracked and vulnerable. This magic of his is a wicked, wild thing, and it has no care for his happiness or sanity.

But even his worst Readings haven't felt like this. There'd been that murder-suicide three months back, where they had him hold the bloodstained knife to find out the why of it all. The white-hot rage that tore through him, the desire to inflict suffering on someone that the killer also loved desperately, the grief and self-hatred after, the determination at the end. Before today, that had been the worst memory he'd relived, and he'd come out of the experience only slightly shaken and needing a drink of cool water. His report had flowed easily from quill to parchment. He'd rolled it up, placed the completed document on Bea's desk, and then gone out for lunch with his mother. He hadn't eaten much, but he made pleasant conversation for an hour and a half. He was shaken, yes, but his foundation hadn't cracked.

But now he's relived one of Potter's memories, and he's not sure he wants to ever Read another thing again in his life. That moment had ripped through him like _Sectumsempra_ , and Draco isn't entirely sure he can do it more than the once. He's always been a coward, no matter how much he pretends he isn't, and pain is something he's shied away from his entire life. Inviting more in, especially pain tied to Potter, is pretty far down the list of things he'd like to do.

But the magic calls to him, makes his hands ache and his fingers tingle, and he carefully removes his gloves and sets them down on the table next to the pile of Potter's things. He holds his hand over all of them, moving it through the air above. Eyes shut, he feels the energy flowing, twining with his fingers like a lover's. It's the closest to physical contact he's had since this started. The energy grows like heated flesh beneath his hand, and when it becomes almost unbearable, he stops and opens his eyes.

His hand is hovering over the feather, and Draco grimaces. He knew that one was going to be the most invested, just from the level of wear it had. He seems to remember Potter having a white owl when they were at school, and since this looks like a flight feather from one, it doesn't bode well at all.

Still, Draco has a duty. He's out of Azkaban for a reason—and he'll be put right back there if he doesn't do what he's told—and he might as well get on with it. Taking another deep breath, he shifts in his chair until he's a bit more comfortable and grabs the feather.

Unlike the medal, he's not sucked into the memory. There's a moment of relief, but then he's filled with a general sense of Potter's emotions. There's sadness, though a weaker reflection of the grief he felt earlier. A wave of inevitability, of reunion. Regret hangs heavy, tainting everything with a taste like metal in the back of his throat. And beneath it, love, though this particular flavour isn't one that Draco recognizes. It doesn't normally hold so many tears with it. Twined through it all are two words, repeated again and again:

Godric's Hollow.

* * *

He sends a Patronus off to Weasley, the small sparrow's message explaining that Draco's found a lead and will be in touch later. He could be more specific, but he likes to keep people on their toes, and, honestly, he feels like he needs to do something to set them square after Weasley overheard Draco's fit earlier. It's just deserts, or at least warranted biscuits.

It's cooler in the West Country than London. The city pavement has a way of holding onto heat like a jealous lover, gathering it tight to its chest and refusing to release it. Godric's Hollow, though, is full of wide streets with breezes that dance through like happy children. They ruffle the too-long ends of Draco's hair, cooling his neck and easing some of the tension he carries with him from Potter's house. The air smells sweet, and the few people he sees on the street smile at him genuinely before turning back to their own business.

It's quaint like a postcard, and Draco, stood in the middle of the main road, wonders how in the world someone as morose as Potter feels could have come from a place like this. But then he remembers that Potter didn't grow up here. He grew up near London with a Muggle family that, from what Draco's read, treated Potter no better than a servant, and a bad one at that. Potter's childhood wasn't filled with fresh breezes and soft smiles. Draco's heart twinges, and he beats the emotion down ruthlessly, unwilling to open the Pandora's Box of yearning that he's spent years locking away.

Instead, he follows the street like a river, drawn by a current and winding his way past the shops, eyes open but unseeing as he reaches for the sensation of Potter's mind that still lingers. It's such an odd feeling, like Draco has another presence in his consciousness. It whispers to him with Potter's voice, like a breath in his ear from a person he can't see. But if he doesn't focus on it, it turns into an instinctive understanding of the other person, a bone-deep knowledge that can't be put into words or thought. It draws Draco like magnetism, and as the iron in his blood aligns with it, he finds himself slowing, then stopping, before a small graveyard.

"Very predictable, Potter." 

The church next to it is dark, but its windows glint with deep, muted colors. The thin lines of silver lead are the brightest part of the design, but Draco imagines that the windows would be filled with brilliance in the sun, colorful light spilling into the sanctuary. He ducks through a kissing gate and walks slowly past the church, wondering what Potter would've thought of the building, whether it would've reminded him of the stones of Hogwarts, or offered him some kind of peace. The towering edifice reminds Draco a bit too much of Azkaban, and he picks up his pace, hurrying out of its shadow into the graveyard behind it.

The graves are covered in familiar family names. Draco's not entirely surprised by this since Godric's Hollow is one of the few wizarding communities that exist in England, but he is startled by how his chest aches reading them. Abbotts and Peverells and Potters and, worst of all, Dumbledores. So many Dumbledores, the graveyard looks like a rough sea filled with breaking whitecap reminders of a murder he failed to commit, a task he failed to complete, a thing he's never regretted not doing.

But Draco knows that's not why Potter came here. Potter wouldn't come here to mourn Dumbledore, not on the Second of May. No, Potter is here to mourn himself and his stolen childhood, which means there's only one grave marker that Draco should be looking for.

It's simple white marble, the engravings on it sharply cut and easily read. Two names with different dates of birth but the same date of death, and an inscription about living after someone is gone. It's Gryffindor rot, and Draco fights the urge to roll his eyes at the sentimentality of it all, even as his throat tightens.

Magic courses through him, though, and he knows he's standing in the same spot Potter had been. With a heavy sigh, he touches the gravestone and feels Potter's memories cemented there, even through the leather.

Potter came here to say goodbye, maybe. But no, Draco thinks, he's probably done that a hundred times throughout his childhood in various ways. Potter only knows the memory of his parents, and not even his own, and he's likely been trying to find a way to move past their deaths since he learned they were killed. So why, on the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, would Potter come here to see them? They didn't have anything to do with the Battle. It doesn't make sense.

Draco wishes he still understood Potter the way he had at school. They'd hated each other in a fashion, but part of hating someone is understanding what makes them tick. Draco had used that knowledge to torment Potter, certainly, but he'd had that knowledge all the same. Only five years removed from their childhood rivalry, though, and Draco suddenly realizes a lot has changed in that short amount of time. The Potter he knew wouldn't have wallowed in grief. He would've attacked it head on. Something about the intervening years has dulled the blade of his determination, and as Draco readies himself for something that can only be a public display of emotion—he can't move the damned gravestone, after all—he wonders what material would be hard enough to batter Potter into a shape Draco doesn't recognize anymore.

His gloves come off, his fingers touch marble, and he's pulled away in a rush, the faded sound of voices raised in song echoing in the empty church behind him.

* * *

This isn't your first time visiting their grave. It's been a handful of years since your last time here, during that desperate trek to find the Sword and end everything. You cried then, and you think you want to cry now, but your eyes stay dry. As you stare at your parents' names etched into stone, the same way they're etched into your heart, all you can think is that you don't know them.

There's so much bitterness in the thought, you can taste it. It makes you wince. You know they did their best to keep you safe, and that when it really counted, they did. They were younger than you are now when they were killed. It's not much work for you to imagine what it had to have felt like, to be pursued by a monster carried forward by dogged determination and a twisted desire to thwart destiny. But add in the burden of an infant, someone incapable of understanding the danger he's in or doing anything to protect himself, someone so wholly dependent on his parents' care, and to do so willingly and with a love that burns even now… You don't understand that.

You wish you did. You wish you understood it in the same way you understood Sirius's devotion to you or Remus's desire to help you grow. Even Dumbledore, who used you in the end for his own means, loved you in a way that you can feel and taste, like lemon and sugar on your tongue. They hurt to think on. It's a weary, bone-deep agony that steals your breath at the most inopportune moments, leaving you starved for oxygen and on the point of collapse. But when you consider your parents, all you have are ghostly reflections and nothing solid enough for you to pull close for comfort.

But you know they loved you, even if you only know it in a clinical sense. So many people have told you, time and time again, that they did. Your life is proof enough of your mother's love, of her final, awful sacrifice for you. But you were barely a year old when they died, and though you close your eyes as you stand before their grave and try to remember the feeling of that all-encompassing love, you can't.

You don't know it.

Your father's figure on the statue looks like you. It's like staring in a slightly twisted mirror, looking at that carved smile. His eyes aren't the same as yours, his shoulders a little broader, but he's enough of your doppelganger that it makes you uncomfortable. And a part of you hates it, hates them. They seem so young to you now. You think of your parents as an adult thinking about other adult's actions, and you don't understand them, can't wrap your mind around the enormity of it. There were no easy answers to the problems they faced, and they made the best decisions they could at the time. But you're grown now, and you judge them as an adult, knowing their failures and weaknesses, their mistakes and regrets, and you can't help but think you would've done something, anything, differently.

If you'd been in their shoes, you wouldn't have been born, and they would be alive.

This isn't the first time you've had this thought, that they're dead because of you, that it's your fault they lost their lives. You know it isn't true. Wormtail betrayed them. Voldemort killed them. You were an infant and loved them like an infant loves its parents, open and warm and stupid. But if you hadn't been there, the prophecy wouldn't have named you, and they would have lived.

You don't wish you'd never existed, not exactly. You're happy to be alive, even on the days you're filled with grief or regret or disgust with yourself. Having been given the chance to choose between life and death, you chose life. Dumbledore knew what he was offering you in that moment, and even though it was the harder choice, it was the one you wanted to make. Even if the world hadn't been depending on you, you wouldn't have moved on. You had—have—too much left to do to have ended it there. But this isn't your best day, the reminder of so much loss always difficult to shoulder, and standing where your parents can only lay, you wish you hadn't been given a choice in the first place.

You sigh, take a step back. You loved them, these two childish strangers, and you still love them. You're open and warm and stupid with it, stuck in time as much as they are. The stone was cold when you first placed your fingers on it, but now it's warm from your skin.

"Good seeing you," you murmur, hand pressed against the marker hard enough to sting. "I'll come visit again soon. I love you."

And you take your hand away, leaving only your memory and lingering warmth behind.

* * *

Draco shakes his hand, easing the sting in the tips of his fingers. Considering how warm the second of May had been, Potter must've been here late at night or early in the morning for the stone to be chilly to the touch. And though the memory had been clear as glass and sharp enough to cut, Draco's not entirely sure where Potter would've gone to next. Draco has a guess, but nothing to support it. Annoyed and tired, he's thinking over the taste of Potter's sadness, the feel of it in his mind, trying to put the pieces of this emotional jigsaw puzzle into place, when a flash of bright white starts yipping at him.

"Malfoy," the Jack Russell Patronus barks, leaping around Draco's feet, "if you don't tell me where in the hell you've gone, I will send every Auror out after you and drag your arse back to Azkaban. I swear, this is well outside the purview of the Department of Mysteries, and I will talk to your supervisors…"

Draco casts a _Muffliato_ around the Patronus, which snaps at the spell before opening its soundless mouth and continuing to spew whatever nonsense Weasley told it earlier. Draco understands the man's annoyance, though that had been the point. Sighing, he waits for the Patronus to stop moving its mouth, then removes the silencing spell.

"Tell Weasley that I'm in Godric's Hollow, if he really must know, and Potter was here. I'm still trying to figure out where he went next, but there's nothing to worry about. Or, at least, nothing _new_ to worry about."

The Patronus blinks at him, then bends down on its front legs, butt in the air and tail wagging, and takes off running down the path back towards the church. Draco turns around to watch it scamper off, its small, white body disappearing an instant later. Sighing, he trails after it, his fingers gliding over the top of the gravestones he walks past. Maybe he should've asked the damned thing to sniff out a trail or something. Patronuses take on a bit of the characteristics of their animal counterparts. Maybe Weasley's would've been able to find a bit of Potter's cologne in the air to guide Draco to his next stop.

Feeling morose—he blames Potter's somber, depressed mood for that, since Draco's day had started off relatively well—he stops in front of one of the Dumbledore graves. It's dark stone covered in patches of grey-green lichen. Draco knows the names carved here. He had read Rita Skeeter's biography of the man he was meant to murder, though he doubted most of its veracity. Ariana was someone he never knew, would never know, but he still feels a kinship with her. She, like him, had been shaped by her childhood experiences, her family. It had changed the course of her life and led to her death. His had led him to follow a madman and get a Mark indelibly tattooed on his arm. 

Draco thinks he got off rather easy, all things considered.

"Life's a bit shit, isn't it?" he asks her before rapping his knuckles on her marker. It stings a bit, but along with the pain, there's a flare of magic stained by a familiar mind. Draco's mouth twitches up at the corner. "Gryffindors. Always making the obvious choices."

* * *

The White Tomb is blindingly bright in the sunlight. Its unbroken marble facade is such a pure color, it's like new-fallen snow, somehow unmelted even in May. Draco blinks at it, eyes tearing, and waits for his vision to adjust. He hasn't been on the grounds of Hogwarts since the Battle, and he has that same sense of surreality as he had that morning. His last time here, everything had been burning and bodies had been laid out in a courtyard, covered with white cloths. Today's too-bright sunshine and cool air feels unnatural, and the Tomb only makes it worse.

They'd built the Tomb up since Dumbledore's death and the Dark Lord's burglary. Instead of a simple, floating marker, it's been reinforced by a larger structure built out of the same white stone. Shaped like a pyramid, with names of the fallen carved into the facade, it's now a combination of a grave and a memorial.

As Draco approaches, he can see that the seemingly unbroken surface is covered in thin, nearly imperceptible cracks. He doesn't know why they decided to rebuild the exterior with the broken pieces of Dumbledore's coffin lid, but they had. It makes his stomach knot up, that visceral reminder of the Dark Lord breaking in to steal from a dead man, and now Draco here to do the same. Only he's not here to steal a wand, he's here to steal a memory.

Potter's mind whispers to Draco of regret and grief as he draws closer to the structure. Stilling in front of the massive door, Draco does his best to quiet the internal monologue of self-loathing. It's rather insistent, though, and with a sigh, Draco closes his eyes and lets that other voice make the next move.

It quiets as if sensing Draco's capitulation. Then, he's filled with the overwhelming desire to enter the Tomb, though it's been locked and warded for years. Draco grits his teeth against the strength of the urge. He can feel the wards, knows he doesn't have a way to get through them, but his mind is screaming with Potter's voice, telling Draco to get in, get in, get _in_.

Eyes squeezed shut as if it will stop the sound, Draco presses his hands against the carved, broken stone, then his forehead. There's a sharp hook in his stomach, and, without his conscious control, he Apparates.

Gasping as he re-coporealizes, un-Splinched and terrified, he's covered in a darkness so thick, it's like heavy cloth wrapped around him. He fumbles for his wand, his gloved hands dull and shaking, then casts _Lumos_ on a shout. As light fills the room, he looks around with wide, disbelieving eyes.

The marble walls are close around him, and in the center of the small, open room is a white stone box. Draco isn't an idiot, he knows what lies inside, but the voice in his mind screams louder that Draco has to open it, has to look. Though the feeling is overwhelming, he fights it. He doesn't want to see the face of a man whose death he witnessed. He doesn't need the reminder.

But his feet shuffle forward until his toes bump against the marble, and Draco presses his palms against the top of the simple coffin. Now that he's this close, he can see a carved channel in the top, and, tucked within it, the Elder Wand. Much like his new magic, it calls to Draco. Maybe it recognizes the presence of one of its former masters, maybe it's just looking for someone to make use of it again, but between the voice in his head, the memories burning beneath his hands, and the Wand calling out, Draco thinks he'll go mad.

All he knows is that Potter was here, inside Dumbledore's tomb, his own hands pressed against the surface as he mourned the loss of his mentor. No part of Draco wants to relive that moment, though he knows it will show him a bit of Potter that no one else has ever seen. Draco's heart aches with it, and his long-buried desire to _understand_ Harry bubbles up. It cascades through him, another torrent of emotion that he can barely contain, and leaves him bent over Dumbledore's grave, body shaking and gloves already halfway off.

When he touches the stone, he's awash with guilt and anger and love, a love so twisted and deep that it makes him cry out. Potter's as confused about Dumbledore's place in his life as Draco is, though their perspectives are mirror opposites of each other. Potter wants to know how much his life would have changed if Dumbledore had done less, and Draco wants to know what would've happened if the man had done more. Their emotions twist and ply together until they're one, solid, unbroken thread of pain and remorse, and Draco can't tell where his feelings end and Potter's begin.

He's crying for a man he wanted to hate, stuck with the voice of a man he wanted to love shouting in his head that this isn't his fault, and Draco doesn't know if that voice is talking to Draco or to itself.

With a scream, he wrenches his hands away, falling back and to the ground. Startled and literally off-balance, his bare palms slam onto the floor. There's a sting of pain, the heat of blood against abraded flesh, and then he's swept away, Potter's voice loud and insistent in Draco's mind.

* * *

It's been years since you've been caught off guard like this. You want to blame it on the quiet of Dumbledore's tomb, on your own upended emotional state, but you think it might also be complacency. You haven't had to run from danger for a long time, and your instincts have grown soft. It's the only thing you can think of when hands grab you, bruisingly tight around your arms, and throw you to the ground. The marble, though it was polished smooth as glass when it was put in, is littered with gravel now, and your hands scrape against it. You're reaching for your wand, a spell already on your tongue, when a heavy boot slams into the center of your back and pushes your breath from your lungs and your face into the floor.

You taste blood. Your attacker hasn't broken your nose—you know how that feels; Malfoy's boot heavy on your face and a pain so sharp, it's like millions of tiny knives driving into your skull—but you hit it hard enough for it to bleed. It drips on the floor before you as your eyes swim. You groan and try to push yourself up again, but the boot presses down.

"Now, now," a softly accented voice says from above you. "Don't get up on my account, Mr Potter. We'll have time for pleasantries later."

"What do you want?" It comes out tangled with iron. You spit to clear the taste, though it doesn't work.

"I said pleasantries later. _Petrificus totalus._ "

Your body goes stiff as a board, and with an inevitability that's almost irritating, you crash down onto the floor again. This time, your nose does break, and even though you're face down against the floor, and the sky is behind you and hidden by a thick marble slab, you see stars.

The voice continues. "We'll be going on a little trip, young man. I have plans for you, fascinating ones. I'm sure once you see them, you'll be so excited, you'll just scream. _Leviosa_."

You rise into the air, blood dripping stark red against the floor, and then you vanish, as forgotten as the stain you leave behind.

* * *

Draco rolls onto his back, his hands held high above him as he pants, the pain of Potter's broken nose echoing in his own sinuses. Though he knows it isn't there, he can taste blood, and it makes his stomach turn. It's a struggle to get up from the floor without touching it, but he somehow manages to do it, though it lacks any semblance of grace. His gloves are still sitting on top of Dumbledore's tomb, and he takes them with frantic, shaking fingers and puts them back on. As soon as his fingers settle into the second glove, he feels some of his panic dim, replaced by a sense of urgency he isn't used to feeling. He knows that voice. It's been years, but it's one that used to twine with the Dark Lord's, both of them laughing in the darkened hallways of Malfoy Manor during the War.

Merlin, Weasley was right, and he's going to be insufferable about it.

Draco turns and catches sight of Potter's spilled blood on the floor. For a moment, he considers cleaning it up, the stain profane against the memorial white, but then he remembers that this is a crime scene now, and he hastily casts a stasis charm over the whole space before Apparating outside.

His sparrow chirps at him when he casts the Patronus charm. For a brief second, he lets the tiny thing settle on his hand, its bright white eyes flashing as it tilts its head back and forth, waiting for his message. Draco's waiting for it, too, unsure of how to send this particular news. With a deep breath, he starts.

"Weasley, you were right. Potter was taken from Dumbledore's tomb. I don't know where, but I recognized the voice of his attacker. I'm going to have to go through some of my father's records, see what I can put together from them, but whoever it was, he used to be a Death Eater. I'll be back in London shortly, so look for me there. Granger has my address."

He shifts his hand up, causing the sparrow to lift from his finger. It flaps its wings for a moment, then flies into the air, disappearing into the slowly darkening sky. Exhausted, he drags his hand through his hair, wincing a little when the leather of his glove catches. His neat outfit is disheveled, the tan trousers stained at the knees and no longer creased. His shirt is bunched uncomfortably underneath his waistcoat, and all he wants to do is go home, have a shower and a glass of whiskey, and then crawl into bed. He's Read four times today, which is more than he's ever attempted in this short of a timespan. It's ripped every bit of energy from him and left his emotional foundation cracked and shaky. Potter's voice is an echo in his mind that won't stop ringing out, and if he could silence it, he would.

Even as he thinks it, though, he knows he's lying to himself. He doesn't have enough energy to keep up the facade, that he decided to help Granger and Weasley with this because he had no choice, because he had a duty, because the Department would send him back to Azkaban if he didn't. He'll only admit it to himself, but he's here because he wants to find Potter, to save him, to make the man look at him in a way that Draco's always wanted Potter to look at him: as if Draco matters, as if he's seen.

It's a childish thing, this desire. Not in the sense that it lacks maturity or it's the want of a young boy, but rather that it's something he's had since he was a child. He's wanted Harry Potter to _see_ him since he met the prat in Madam Malkin's, even not knowing who he was then. The messy-haired boy, his green eyes wary, had drawn Draco like a moth to flame. He wanted to impress him, and after that first botched attempt to do so, it had all been downhill from there. But he'd been desperate for Potter's attention anyway, desperate to make him understand who Draco was, rather than what he appeared to be.

It wasn't until he'd pressed his heel to Potter's face, cracking his nose like glass, that he'd given up on that foolish dream. Now, he has a mirrored memory of that moment. He knows the feel of Potter's nose beneath his shoe, and the pain of it breaking. Knows what it's like to look up into his own face as he presses his heel down into Potter's. A sharp, aching pain in his skull and in his chest, both of those melding into one, an overwhelming wave of anguish that steals his breath. There's no coming back from that moment, from _Sectumsempra_ , from blood smeared across floors and soles. And though he knows it in a clinical, logical, analytical way, his childish heart still wants what it can't have. It's warm and soft and stupid.

But brooding on the Scottish moors isn't going to do him any good, and with a final glance to Dumbledore's painfully white tomb, Draco Apparates home.

* * *

As he appears in his flat, a sense of belonging washes over him like a balm. Here, everything is his, is invested with only his memories and emotions, and his magic settles, quiets, falls silent. He tears his gloves from his hands and stumbles to the couch in the center of his living room. When his hands press to the cushions and he isn't whipped away by memory, he groans, then falls face-first into the soft fabric. Eyes shut and not swimming with someone else's thoughts, he does his best to still his own mind, to quiet the endless sound of his internal voice. It takes a minute, but he eventually finds blissful peace. Still and dark, his mind settles.

He stays like that for a long time, sitting in the blank space within his mind. It's the closest he gets to relief these days, and he doesn't want to give it up. But the longer he stays here, the harder it is, and eventually, Potter's voice slips into his mind, whispering that Draco needs to find him, to save him. That time is running out.

So even though he's exhausted and broken down in a way he doesn't have the energy to fully understand, he forces himself off of the couch and towards the front hall closet where he keeps his father's journals.

When Draco was taken from Azkaban, the Ministry sent him home to the Manor. His mother, thin and washed out from almost a year of worry, reached for his hands, then shrunk back. She understood that, as much as she wanted to wrap her arms around him and draw him close, it hadn't been an option. Somehow, it was worse than being at Azkaban with her on the other side of bars. Then, they hadn't been able to touch because of distance and guards. Now, they couldn't because of Draco and his curse.

Those first weeks had been as painful as prison. The distance, the constant fear of touch, the reminders of those last, dark days when the Dark Lord had haunted the house. Draco did his best to run from it, losing himself in the task of going through his father's things. But even that hadn't done much to sooth his ragged edges. His father's memories called out to him, seeping through the cotton of Draco's gloves. That's how he learned that he needed to wear leather, rather than fabric. It was a heavier barrier, one that even the strongest emotions couldn't break through, not fully.

But he didn't learn that until he'd been swept into his father's mind, so filled with fear and self-loathing, it had left Draco sick for days after. Not from the magic, but from the familiarity of those emotions and the way they felt exactly like Draco's.

He packed up his father's journals, kissed his mother quickly on the cheek, and got the hell out. His flat in London was brand-new and had never been rented before. It took six months for the memories of the builders to fade from the floors and walls, and then it had been only Draco's.

He keeps his father's journals in the back of the hall closet because it's as close as he can bear. There are coats and umbrellas, shoes and boots, a few bags, all piled carefully in front of the box containing the last memories of his father. Draco has to remind himself that his father isn't dead, that his body still exists and breathes and lives, but since his father's mind broke in Azkaban, his handwriting scrawled across parchment and his fear pressed into the pages are all that remain. Hiding it away makes it less obvious, but no less real.

It's a terrible legacy for a terrible man, and it makes Draco's heart hurt. His father may have done evil things, made Draco do evil things, but Lucius had only ever wanted the best for his family and for Draco. Of course, he'd bollocksed it up completely, had left them in ruin, and gotten his son thrown into prison along with him, but he'd meant well. It's enough to let Draco not hate his father for it, and to not hate himself for wanting to hate Lucius in the first place.

Tonight, though, he despises the man for putting him in this position. Draco has an idea of when he last heard the voice of Potter's abductor, and as he moves forgotten clothing aside, he pulls the box out and opens it.

There are ten thin leather volumes tucked inside, and after putting his gloves back on, Draco takes them out, one by one, as if they were simultaneously precious and deadly. The newest one is also the most battered. It had been pristine when he took it from his father's office, but this isn't Draco's first time flipping through the pages of his father's last year, and the journal has gained wear from the process. Leather isn't gentle on pages, especially while covering fingers numb with grief.

He opens to a well-worn place, the week following Potter's appearance at the Manor. Draco still doesn't understand fully why he lied to his father about that. Even with a swollen, bloodied face, Potter was recognizable. But Draco had lied and sealed his family's fate with it. The Dark Lord lost trust in them after, and things had gone from bad to worse rather quickly. Aunt Bellatrix hadn't helped matters, her fanaticism as painful as the torture she insisted on meting out. His father's journal entries had grown more terse, more frequent, and staring at the smudged ink like black slashes across the page, Draco has to fight back exhaustion and anger.

He needs to see the man who took Potter, needs to remember his name, and his father's memories are the only place he can go for that. Swallowing down bitter dread, he sets the journal on the floor, takes his gloves off, and slowly, cautiously presses his fingers to the page.

* * *

Your home is dark these days, and it's not from lack of trying to keep the place well-lit. Somehow, it hangs around the rooms like additional decor, as if Narcissa has decided to try a new style that feels like a funeral shroud. Bellatrix is a nightmare, as much a ghost haunting the place as she ever has been, only more vengeful. Her eyes zealous and bright, she grins like a skull when you walk into the front parlour.

"Lucius," she breathes, her fingers tracing the outline of the Mark on her arm. "He's coming."

"Of course." You feel an answering lance of pain through your left arm and know she's not imagining it this time. "I'll have the elves get the house ready."

You turn to leave, but she jumps up from her chair like a coiled snake, her fingers tight around your wrist. "He's bringing friends."

"Then we will put out the good china." You place your hand over hers and pry her fingers from around your skin. "Excuse me."

While you are able to step away from her, to escape the parlour, there's no escaping the pain in your arm and the growing dread in the pit of your stomach. For months, the Dark Lord had left you and your family alone, and now, two weeks after you'd had Harry Potter in your grasp only to have him stolen away by a house-elf, he has started checking in almost daily. His inhuman presence, the twisted power of him, leaves you shaking after, and no amount of calming draughts have eased it. Before today, though, he hasn't brought anyone else.

It does not bode well.

You find Narcissa in the sunroom, and as she looks up from the book she's pretending to read, you feel a sharp lance of love for the strength of her. Where you are worn thin, your eyes shadowed by dark circles, she is as poised and beautiful as she's ever been. Her fear is a hidden thing, and your pride at her ability to keep it secret is only matched by your envy.

"He's coming."

"When isn't he?" she asks, voice cold as ice. "I will ready the house."

"He's bringing others."

She stills. "How many?"

"Bellatrix didn't say."

"She wouldn't." Narcissa sighs. "When will this end, Lucius?"

Shame rips through you, and you fight to keep it from your face. This is your fault. You've dragged your family through this after you. The least you can do is not let them see your regret. "Soon," you manage before taking her delicate, powerful hands in yours. "Let's prepare."

Though he doesn't arrive for hours, it feels like there's not enough time. You hurry through your home, trying to hide the signs of warmth that insist on bursting through the darkness the Lord desires. Bellatrix trails after you, a rictus of joy smeared across her face while she speaks quietly to herself. You have no idea where Draco's hidden himself away, but that's more of a relief than you'll ever admit. You don't want him around the people who are about to arrive. Even not knowing who they are, you know you don't want them near your son.

When you hear the crack of Apparition filling the front entryway, you close your eyes, take a deep breath, and go into battle. You walk into the entryway with as imperious an air as you can manage after two hours of frantic hurrying through your home. Your reputation and the tilt of your head do most of the work.

"Good evening." Their heads turn in the direction of your voice like flowers towards the sun. But rather than glowing under your gaze, their faces turn sour. From the center of the mass, the Dark Lord steps forward.

"Lucius." His voice hisses through you, twining about your body like a snake to squeeze the breath from your lungs. "Thank you for the hospitality."

You bow with grace and poise, even as you seethe. "Let me show you to dinner."

You can feel their eyes on you as they follow behind, as you take a seat at Voldemort's right hand, though you know Bellatrix wanted it. She kicks or hexes you under the table, but you shrug it off to make small talk with the man to your right.

"I've always loved your home, Lucius," he says after taking another drink of wine, a vintage from the cellar so old, it lacked a label. "Such history. Such _legacy_."

You don't like how he says the word, the way he rolls it around on his tongue as if it tastes as rich as the wine. "Yes, it has been with the family for a very long time."

"I'm jealous of that, you know. Not the name or the power that it carries, but the history. That is something to be enviable of."

"Tomás." You cut him off before he can continue. "Your family's just as old as mine."

"But not of the right sort." He grins like a grimace. "You know that, though."

You do, but you don't say that. Instead, you murmur something inane and mild, putting his attention back on his drink, instead of whatever thing of yours he thinks he wants. He doesn't understand that there's so much more to a legacy than power or history, that it's just as heavy with the weight of responsibility.

There's a noise at the door, a soft, silent thing that you shouldn't hear at all. But there's enough of a lull in conversation, your attention turned in such a particular way that you catch it. Part of your legacy stands just outside of the room, his grey eyes so much like your own. He meets your gaze, unreadable, then turns and walks away.

The weight on your shoulders grows.

You turn to the Dark Lord, and try to find a way to ease the burden.

* * *

Draco pulls away from the diary, unable to witness what comes next. He doesn't remember the moment, doesn't know what he was thinking when he saw his father surrounded by Death Eaters with the Dark Lord by his side. But the sense of shame and duty, the way it filled with love as he looked at Draco… 

With a groan, Draco flings himself away from his father's journal to pace the room. He's too full of emotion right now, most of it not his own. He fights to clear his mind, to sift through the important moments of his father's memory. He'd been sitting next to Potter's abductor. His voice had been the same, the flat tone and slightly nasal tint distinct and unforgettable, the accent soft but present. His father knew the man's name. Something with a T…

Like an echo of memory, his apartment cracks with the sound of Apparition. Spinning in surprise, his ungloved hands already reaching for his wand, he stills when he takes in Granger and Weasley, both of them looking exhausted and disheveled, and Weasley looking furious.

"What the hell are you playing at, Malfoy?" He doesn't give Draco a chance to get his gloves, crowding into his space until he has to shove his hands into his pockets or risk touching the man. Draco had made the mistake of touching someone once before, and he won't do it again, not with Weasley.

"I need my gloves."

"To hell with your gloves. Where's Harry?"

Draco thinks he's going to be sick. He's shaking, though he knows it isn't visible, and his elbows are pressed against the wall of his flat, forcing his wrists to bend uncomfortably in his pockets, but he can't shove Weasley away, can't bear to touch someone he hates so much, who hates him so much. The consequences are too great, and he can't bear the weight of them again. Ears ringing, vision going grey around the edges, he locks his knees and tries to melt into the wall, to get away, to not feel anything else, anything more.

"Ron!"

Granger shoves Weasley away, pushes him towards the couch while Draco folds in on himself, nearly falling to the floor as he struggles to free his hands. The floor is safe, and he places his sweating palms to it gratefully, followed quickly by his sweat-dotted forehead. Panting against the polished wood, leaving his breath behind as he struggles to find his dignity in the fog, he half-hears Granger voice raised in anger.

"He's trying to help us, you idiot! I explained to you what it's like for him—"

"And he's taking advantage of you because of it! Look at him! There's no way that he isn't acting."

"Get out," Draco growls into the floorboards. "I'm done."

"Draco— "

"No." He pushes himself up from the floor, his legs only slightly unsteady as he glares at Granger, then Weasley. There's no heat in his gaze, though, only exhaustion. "I can't do this. You don't want my help, and I can't do it anymore."

"You said someone took him. That Death Eaters have him." Granger's eyes are pleading, her voice unsteady. Draco doesn't care.

" _A_ Death Eater. Singular. I think his name is Tomás. Now you know everything I do." He bends down to pick his gloves up from the floor and puts them on like the armor they are. "Get out."

"You said you'd help," Weasley grits out.

He snaps. "I've helped! Do you think this is easy? Do you think I want to know every one of Potter's fucking thoughts or have him lingering in my mind like this? I won't be able to shake his voice for weeks, do you know that? He's already ricocheting through my head like a misfired hex, and it's only going to get worse the more I Read. You've had me running all over Britain, chasing down whispers, all damned day, filling my mind with someone else's. And now"—he throws his arms wide, gesturing to the space around them—"you invade my home, you threaten me, and all for what? For a name? Fuck you, Weasley. Get the hell out."

Weasley's normally red face is white, mouth hanging open as Draco fights to get his temper under control. With a furious growl, Draco spins around and hurries into his kitchen. The Ogden's is in the top cabinet, and he pulls it down, foregoes a glass, and takes a heavy drink. The burn makes his eyes water, but it quiets Potter's admonishments bouncing around in his mind.

 _They don't understand_ , it whispers. _They don't know_.

"Shut up," he gasps before taking another swallow. "Stop talking to me."

"Malfoy…" Granger's voice is soft as freshly laundered cloth. "Draco. I'm sorry. We'll.... I can work with a name. Thank you. For your help, and for… Just, thank you."

He doesn't turn around, and she doesn't leave. They stand in his kitchen, neither speaking, neither moving, and Potter's voice falls silent, too. All Draco can hear are his own panted breaths and racing pulse.

A moment later, her shoes click on his floor once, then twice. She's walking away, and though he wants to fling the bottle clenched in his hands against the wall, to shatter it into a million, sparkling pieces, he lets it go, leaves it on the counter, and follows after her.

"Stop."

She pauses at the doorway, Weasley a step behind her and looking cowed and uncomfortable.

"He's not British. I don't know what nationality. Maybe Spanish or Portuguese. His accent is slight, but noticeable." Draco closes his eyes and draws the memory forward in his mind. "Dark blond or light brown hair. A distinct nose. Between five-foot ten-inches and six-foot in height. I didn't… I don't remember his eye color. My father didn't get a good look."

"Your father?" Weasley grunts when Granger puts an elbow in his gut. "Thank you, Malfoy."

"Now, please. Get out of my home."

Granger doesn't say anything, just opens the front door and drags Weasley out after her. As soon as the latch snicks shut, Draco steps forward, does the bolt, and leans his head against the wood. He doesn't know how long he stands there, breathing quietly, eyes shut, Potter's voice blessedly silent in his mind. When he eventually steps back, his eyes are dry and his hands don't shake. He puts the Ogden's away. Turning the lights off as he goes, he makes his way to his bedroom where he tumbles into bed, still dressed but exhausted enough to not care, and falls into a fitful, but quiet, sleep.

* * *

The sun stings when it finally makes its way across Draco's bed to his closed eyes. With his eyelids shut tight, everything turns the shade of red of light filtered through skin. He gives up on pretending to still be asleep, and opens his eyes to the reality of morning. Potter whispers about duty and friendship, but Draco ignores it in favor of changing out of yesterday's clothes and clearing the taste of morning breath from his mouth.

Coffee goes down easily. It's Saturday, so there's no need for Draco to do anything other than what he wants. He settles into his favorite chair, picks up a book he's been stuck halfway through for the last month, and decides he's going to spend the day finally finishing it.

But as he tries to lose himself in someone else's words, Potter insists on making himself known. His voice whispers through Draco's mind like a ghostly touch, leaving his concentration in tatters. It doesn't matter how hard he tries to focus, it's broken again and again by that persistent voice, one that's haunted Draco for far longer than the time between now and when he'd held Potter's medal in his hands. He nearly throws the book across the room, but instead slams it shut on the table next to his chair.

"Why won't you let me be?" he asks the empty room. "I've done what I can do."

 _You can do more. You can_ be _more._

"I'm tired."

_We're all tired._

"I don't want…"

_You want. Don't lie to yourself._

"And what do you want?" The words shatter like glass on the floor.

_I want you to save me._

With a cry, Draco flings himself from his chair, gloved hands tightened into fists. "Save you? How do I do that?"

_Find me, Draco. You know where I am. I'm only waiting._

He laughs, tears at his hair. "I hate you, Potter."

 _No, you don't_.

"No," he sighs, chest tight, "I don't."

Stomach twisting, pulse pounding, Draco goes to the closet and his father's memories, and starts looking for the truth.

* * *

By the end of the day, he wants to crawl into bed, curl into a ball under the covers, and never come out. Instead, he takes a hot shower and lets his father's voice wash from his mind and down the drain. When he steps out, he feels marginally more himself, though the echoes linger, like they always do. He gets dressed, putting on clothes spelled with protection charms and safe-guarded against hexes. His Unspeakable robes cover the rest, and the spells woven in those threads are ones he doesn't know but trusts implicitly. Finally, he grabs his heaviest set of gloves, their thick leather stiff against his fingers, the padding along the knuckles comforting in its weight.

The last thing he does before leaving his flat is send a sparrow winging through the window, a message held within its blank-page mind to deliver to Weasley and Granger. Draco isn't sure he cares if it reaches them or not, but knows it's better than setting off on his own. He doesn't expect backup or their assistance or their gratitude, but he knows he has to tell someone before he does what he's planning to do.

It's dangerous and reckless and wildly Gryffindor of him, but as Draco Apparates to Brighton, then Normandy, then Paris, and on and on towards Spain, he blames it all on Potter's voice in his mind and its constant whisper of _more_.

* * *

When he arrives outside of Tomás's home, Draco feels like he's fallen into a storybook. Not a happy one, read to children before bed, but a terrifying one, read under covers with a spelled light for company. It's raining, though it's more like a thick fog than rain. It clings to Draco's face, dotting his lashes and hair before he casts an _Impervius_ to stop the wet from growing worse. Tomás's home is a stereotype in dark, cragged stone. Two stories, with a peaked roof that might hold an attic, it's somehow gothic and yet not. The few windows that aren't curtained are dark, and though Draco knows it's stupid, he casts a Notice-Me-Not charm and creeps towards the boxwood hedges lining the front of the house.

Peering through a window, Draco's heart pounding in his chest, he's somewhat relieved to find it so dark inside that he can't make anything out clearly. It bodes well for breaking in, which is what he's about to do. Once he gets up the courage.

This is idiotic. It's ill-advised. He has no plan, no strategy. Even his backup is only theoretical. But Potter's voice keeps telling Draco to move forward, to keep going, and Draco's magic calls out to him, questing for the memories locked within the house. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and lets the power pull him forward.

He doesn't risk Apparition, instead forcing the window open and climbing through. Thankfully, even nominal Unspeakables receive some physical training, and he gets inside without making too much noise. Soundlessly closing the window behind him, he takes careful steps forward, letting the hum in his hands draw him through a front room into a hallway leading back to a kitchen. The stairs along the side are dark and stately, and he trails his fingers along the wall, sensing the hundreds of fingers that have touched it before him, all holding their own quiet contemplation of the dark paneled wood. There's a familiar brush against his mind, and he stills.

 _I'm here_ , it says, and Draco's steps speed up.

The door is fitted so tightly to the jam that it's nearly invisible. If it weren't for his magic and his overly focused mind, he wouldn't have found it. There's no visible latch, but when he presses against the door, it clicks softly, then pushes out from the wall. Swallowing down his fear with his bile, Draco steps inside and closes it behind him.

The darkness is so thick, he can taste it. Unwilling to risk a Lumos, he takes his wand out, presses it to his temple, and casts _Ic Inlīhte_ instead. Instantly, the small stairwell he's standing in brightens, and he blinks against the sudden light. As the spots clear from his vision, he makes his way down the stairs. They're unfinished, no more than boards nailed to stringers. There's no handrail, which is why Draco has a clear view into the unfinished basement, its dirt floor damp from the groundwater rising outside.

In the middle of the room, tied to a chair with his head slumped forward, is Potter. His clothes are torn and dirty, and what little of his shirt Draco can see from under the tuck of Potter's chin is stained with dried blood. Draco wants to rush down the stairs, but he takes his time, unwilling to risk a fall or a sudden noise. He doesn't know if Tomás is home or not, and he doesn't know what state Potter's in. The last thing he needs is a severely injured former-enemy on his hands while having to fight off a former-ally.

The dirt floor gives beneath his boots and squelches as he hurries to Potter's chair. This close, Draco can see the reassuring rise and fall of Potter's chest. Letting out a breath, he reaches for the ropes holding Potter's legs to the chair. As soon as his fingers brush against the hemp, though, Potter jerks forward, eyes unseeing and wide and mouth open on a shout.

Draco curses and falls back, his gloves sinking into the dirt. "Potter, shut your fucking mouth!"

"Malfoy?" Potter pants, unseeing eyes casting around the room and landing close to where Draco's sprawled on the ground. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Keep your goddamned voice down." He gets back up and hurries to Potter, mud-streaked hands uncertain and stumbling against the knots holding him in place. "Clearly, I'm here to get you out, you idiot. Now, shut up. I don't know if Tomás is here."

"You know him. You know who took me."

"Technically, no." The knots on Potter's legs give, and he starts wiggling them free. Draco leaves him to it and hurries to the bindings on his wrists. The rope is too tight, and Potter's fingers are swollen and dark. Draco winces. "This is going to hurt."

"I'm sure that'll only make this more entertaining for you. Oh, fuck." Potter's muscles tighten as Draco starts fighting with the knot. "Arsehole."

"I didn't tie the damn things."

"No, I did." The softly accented voice makes both Draco and Potter freeze. "It's good to see you again, Draco. It's been years."

"I'm not sure we've had the pleasure of a formal introduction." His throat is as tight as the rope around Potter's wrists. Keeping his eyes on the man coming slowly down the stairs, he does his best to work at the knot blindly with his leather-clad fingers.

"You sound so much like your father," Tomás says with a quiet laugh. "He always hated me, Lucius."

"I can't imagine why."

Draco's fingers slip, and Potter curses again.

"Step away from Mr Potter, Draco. I'm afraid whatever you were planning on doing here, it's over now."

"I politely disagree."

"I thought you might. _Stupefy_!"

Draco doesn't know how he manages it, but he throws Potter, chair and all, to the ground, both of them somehow dodging the stunning spell. Potter grunts in pain, though, and he glares up at Draco with dirt smeared across his face.

"Idiot children." Tomás rushes forward, wand held out, and casts another _Stupefy_. With nowhere else to go, Draco ducks behind Potter's sprawled body and winces when his shoulder digs into the dirt. " _Lumos_."

Light fills the room, and Draco cries out, his night vision spell making everything white. Cursing, he dispells it, then blinks his watering eyes as he takes in Tomás, looming over him and Potter, both sprawled on the floor, Draco's wand holstered uselessly in his sleeve. As his arm twitches, Tomás points his wand at Draco, expression blank and terrifying in its immovability.

"Don't. I'd rather not kill you. I'd hate to be the end of such a legacy."

"Fuck you."

Tomás laughs, though his expression doesn't change. "So like your father. Get up."

Draco stumbles to standing and wipes his gloves against his robes. They slip a little, the sweat seeping from his palms making the leather slick. His gut churns.

"What was the plan here?" he asks, hoping for more time. "Kidnap the Boy Who Lived, somehow redeem yourself in the eyes of the other sycophants?"

"Draco. I'm disappointed in you. I'm sure your father explained Horcruxes to you. That young man"—his eyes dart to Potter, and Draco takes the brief moment to let his gloves slip further down his hands—"has a part of the Dark Lord inside him. It may take me years, but I will find a way to draw it out. He'll rise again, with me to thank for his return to power."

"He's dead."

"He's _dormant._ " The fervor in Tomás's voice is the first emotion Draco's heard from the man. He thinks he's going to be sick. Tomás takes a step closer to Potter, his attention drawn again to the bound man on the floor. "I just have to wake him."

Draco shakes his gloves off entirely, and though they're thick leather and padded, they make no sound when they hit the dirt floor. Tomás is staring at Potter like he's entranced, as if he can see the remnants of his Lord in green, furious, terrified eyes. His wand hand is limp at his side, his whole being focused entirely on Harry. This is Draco's chance, and though he knows he won't get a second one, he also knows what he's about to do, and a piece of his soul, what little remains of it, cracks and falls away, broken.

"I'm sorry," he forces out before grabbing Tomás's bare left arm in his bare hands. For a second, he feels warm flesh dusted with hair, a moment of sensation that's purely physical. And then he _pulls_ , and Tomás starts to scream.

...

You're kneeling at his feet, staring into his beautiful, slitted eyes. You will remember this moment for the rest of your life, the sweet rush of pain in your arm as he puts his Mark on your skin, almost like a lover's touch. Eyes shut, mouth open in an ecstatic smile, your body shudders through orgasm as you become his— body, mind, and soul.

...

Lucius Malfoy sneers at you, then looks to the dark form of his son lingering in the doorway. You wonder what it would be like, to look at something that you created, that was of your blood and flesh. Unconsciously, you look to your Lord, and you want with a desperate ache to bring more of him into the world. _Legacies_ , you think and start planning.

...

He falls and you flee, heart broken and bleeding. There's an old house in Spain, one you grew up in though you have no lasting connection to it now, other than the deed. It opens its doors to you, lets you fall inside its entryway, and you sob into the carpet as you mourn the loss of Tom, of the only man you've ever loved, who never loved you back.

...

You watch the trials, read the newspapers as they convict the men and women you used to think of as friends, as compatriots. But none of them know what you know, so you let them go to Azkaban, let them rot behind bars while you plot and plan and wait, patient in the way that madness lets you be. You watch Harry Potter, and you prepare.

...

It's a surprise to find him so easily, so predictably. Five years, you've been waiting, and now, here he is. Spread out before you like an offering, as if the piece of Voldemort living in him knows that you are here to save it, to bring it back to life. He has waited for you, all this time, and now, he's letting you take your prize.

"Now, now," you say. "Don't get up on my account, Mr Potter. We'll have time for pleasantries later."

Of course, the pleasantries are much more pleasant for you than for him, but he doesn't need to know that yet.

...

Torture is so barbaric, but your blood sings with it. It calls to the animalistic part of your mind, one that you've tried to lock away but bursts free now with violence hot under your skin. Harry Potter's blood flecks your arms and face, and you lick it from your smiling lips as he screams and screams and screams…

...

Draco keeps pulling, tearing memories and moments from Tomás's mind like weeds in a garden. They fill his hands and his mind and his skin until he's screaming with it, too. Their voices blend and echo in the cramped basement, becoming one awful discordance. With a final tearing pull, like a tree coming free from the ground, like stones breaking off a cliff to fall into the ocean, like lightning striking and splitting the earth, Draco rips his hands from Tomás's arm, takes an unsteady step back, and watches as the man falls to the ground, eyes open and unseeing and locked on the ceiling.

The _Lumos_ still hovers over the achingly silent room. Draco pants, ears ringing, then turns to the side and is violently sick. He didn't eat before he left, so after the meager remains of his lunch find their way from his stomach to the floor, all he brings up is acid and bile. It clogs his throat, taints his mouth, fills his eyes with tears. Bare hands pressed to his knees as he's washed by wave after wave of nausea, he can still hear Tomás's voice speaking in his mind, whispering to him of the taste of Potter's blood.

"Malfoy?"

He closes his eyes, breathes.

"Malfoy, what the fuck just happened?"

In. Out. Draco spits, then stands. His legs feel like jelly, and he wobbles uncertainly. For a moment, he thinks he's going to pass out. That's what happened the last time. The floor of his cell had been hard and sharp, and he's got the scars to prove it. Somehow, though, he keeps his feet, and as Potter struggles on the floor, Draco's vision clears.

"Hold on," he finally says, voice scratchy and unrecognizable from the vomiting. "Let me untie you."

He's reaching for Potter's wrists, nearly touching his purpled skin, before Draco remembers his gloves. Nausea rises again, and he pulls away as if burnt.

"Hurry up," Potter urges, glancing over his shoulder to stare at Draco. "We need to get out of here before he comes out of whatever you did to him."

"He won't come out of it," Draco murmurs. He lifts his gloves from the dirt, streaking his skin with mud as he pulls them on.

"You killed him?"

Draco pulls at the knots. Now that the room is filled with light, he's able to make out the intricate intertwined strands. He focuses solely on pulling the rope through the loops, loosening it from around Potter's wrists.

"Malfoy, did you kill him?"

"No." The final knot comes undone, and as blood rushes back into Potter's hands and he curses at the pain of it, Draco moves away, unwilling or unable to look at him any longer with the taste of Potter's blood tainting someone else's mouth.

"Merlin, Malfoy. He's completely unresponsive. We've gotta get him to St. Mungo's."

"It won't help. And we're in Spain. No way to get him to England without killing him, though it might be a blessing."

"I didn't think you were cold-blooded. Christ."

Draco turns and takes in Potter's form hunched over his captor's unmoving body. He's favoring his right side. His left arm is curled across his waist, the shoulder clearly sore and bruised from the fall to the ground while bound to the chair. Draco also knows that Potter's chest is covered in cuts and bruises, ritualistic marks on his tanned skin that Draco knows more about than he ever wants to know, marks left by someone else's hands.

He turns around and lets bile pour from his mouth again.

* * *

It takes some convincing, but Draco manages to get Potter to call the local Muggle emergency services. They flee Tomás's house before they arrive, but they manage to haul his body from the basement into the front hallway, and Draco figures the physicians can blame Tomás's catatonic state on a fall, rather than the truth.

Potter's too injured and Draco too exhausted to make the jumps back to England. Thankfully, there's a small cottage that belongs to the Malfoy family outside of Bilbao, tucked into the foothills of the Pyrennes. He'd visited once when he was a child, and all Draco remembers of it is a sense of peace and quiet, something he desperately needs now, after.

The wards let him in, recognizing his bloodline, and he and Potter stumble into the main room, a wide open space dominated by large windows overlooking overgrown forest, a riverstone fireplace taking up the opposite wall, the furniture inside shrouded in drop cloths. He drags one off of a large sofa, then helps Potter ease himself onto it. Even though it's at least a decade out of style, the stasis charms on it have held, and Potter breathes a low sigh of relief as its soft cushions meld to his body.

"I'll check for medical supplies," Draco says before fleeing the room.

He vaguely remembers his way to the bathroom and rinses the acrid tang of vomit from his mouth, though he leaves the lights off. Head bent over the sink, unable to meet his eyes in the mirror, he lets the anger and grief rip through him. Tomás's voice screams in his mind, and though it takes a focus he shouldn't be able to have right now, he draws those memories from his mind as if putting them into a Pensieve, then lets them disappear down the sink drain. Once they're gone, wiped from the world as much as Draco wiped them from Tomás's mind, he's finally left in blissful silence, though bliss feels an awful lot like self-hatred and disgust.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

Potter grunts as he leans against the doorframe. "I'd like to know what happened."

"I really don't think you do."

"I owe you my life."

Draco bites his tongue hard enough to taste blood. He spits it into the sink and watches red streak the porcelain. He doesn't lift his eyes, watching as the stain smears towards the drain.

"Do you know what happened to me, after the War?" he asks, voice achingly quiet.

"A bit."

"But not everything."

"No."

Draco swallows. "I'd been in Azkaban for seven months. They hadn't set a term for my imprisonment, and I'd given up on thinking I'd ever escape that damned island. So, I behaved myself. And after seven months, they let me see my father."

He closes his eyes, remembering. The open courtyard in the center of the prison, nominally for prisoners to exercise, but really just a rocky crag with a handful of tables that were never used, and his father's too-thin face breaking into a smile like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, like darkened hallways suddenly filled with light.

"I didn't know. The power hadn't manifested fully by then, just fits and spurts. But when he hugged me… I don't know if it was his neck or his back that I touched, but it was enough. I tore him out of his mind. All of his thoughts and memories and feelings, I _took_ them. And I left nothing behind, other than a beating heart and breathing lungs."

He spits again. "The Unspeakables found me a few weeks later, curled in the corner of my cell, screaming. I couldn't stop him talking to me. I didn't know how to then, didn't want to. He was gone, and it was my fault."

Potter's breath is heavy, loud in the dark bathroom. "And you did it again. Tonight."

"I didn't see another option. If I had, I would've taken it. This… power of mine, this magic. It makes me relive the emotions from things, the memories and feelings left behind by their owners. But when it's set loose against _people_..."

"Are you…" Potter stops. "What can I do to help?"

"Nothing. There's no helping it. We'll get you healed up enough for the trip back, and maybe saving your life will be enough for taking my father's."

"You didn't know."

"It doesn't matter." Draco reaches up, opens the medicine cabinet above the sink. There are bandages and salves inside, and he grabs them with numb, leather-clad fingers. "Go sit down."

Potter doesn't say anything. A moment later, Draco trails after him, supplies in his hands. Potter is sitting on the couch, halfway through taking his stained shirt off. His fingers are still swollen and bruised, his face covered in nearly healed bruises from his broken nose. Draco sits, sets the bandages and salves down, then brushes Potter's fingers away. Even with his heavy gloves on, Draco's fingers are more nimble. As he undoes the buttons, he leaves streaks of dirt behind, the dark brown lost against the dried blood.

Potter's chest is covered in red, swollen cuts. As Draco pulls the shirt away, it sticks to Potter's skin, and he winces as some of the injuries reopen. Draco reaches for his wand, but Potter shakes his head, stopping him.

"You're tired. Save your magic for later."

Nodding, Draco continues helping Potter from his shirt. Besides the cuts, bruises litter his skin like smears of purple and black and yellow watercolor across canvas. His left shoulder is a mottled mess, and when Draco wraps his hand around it, feeling for a dislocation, Potter curses, but nods at Draco to continue when his hand stills.

"We'll need to make a sling for that," he says softly. His palm print leaves a ghostly white imprint when he pulls away, though it fades quickly back to purple.

Draco reaches for the salve, but stops when he looks at the ruined state of his gloves. He hadn't thought to bring another pair, hadn't thought through much of anything before leaving England on this fool's errand. Smearing dirt into Potter's wounds will only make them worse, and with the state of Potter's swollen hands and bruised shoulder, he won't be able to reach the worst of his injuries. Draco thinks he'll be sick all over again.

"I don't…"

Potter's hand is heavy on Draco's wrist, his fingers nearly touching the thin strip of skin peering out from between the cuff of Draco's glove and sleeve. "I trust you."

"I could ruin you."

Potter swallows, nods. "I trust you not to."

 _You can be more_ , his voice whispers in Draco's mind. _I want you to save me._

Hands shaking, heart beating out of tempo in his chest, Draco pulls his gloves off. His fingers are soft and uncalloused. It's been years since he's touched anything directly. Newborn and uncertain, he opens the salve and fights back the lightning flash of memory that tries to pour into his body. Teeth gritted, he stops them, leaving them behind with the lid as he removes it.

The salve is cold and slick on his fingertips. It's the first pleasant physical contact he's had outside of his apartment, and for a moment, he thinks he might cry at the simple satisfaction of smooth cream against skin.

"If anything happens," he starts, but Potter cuts him off with a glare.

"You won't hurt me."

"I didn't want to hurt my father, either."

"Draco."

He nods, then reaches his salve-coated fingers towards the largest cut on Potter's chest. It's a deep line bisecting his chest, starting from the dip of his throat to the end of his breastbone. Draco's never been so scared in his life as he is in this moment. Though he hasn't touched Potter's skin yet, he can feel the heat of it. The salve starts to run on his fingers, their combined body heat melting it, and with a glacial slowness, he presses the tip of his finger to Potter's body.

There's a moment of pure, physical sensation. It tears through Draco like memory, the heat of Potter's skin against his own, the feel of Potter's pulse thundering in time with Draco's. But when the actual memories start to shove their way forward, he somehow holds them at bay. He knows they're there, can feel them reaching out for Draco's magic, and Draco's magic reaching back. It hurts to deny it. The magic wants to overpower him, but as he opens his mouth to fight for breath, Draco forces it back. Though he touches Potter, he doesn't let memory touch power, and as it retreats, somehow cowed, he slowly drags his finger down the red line dividing Potter's chest in two. When he stops just above Potter's abs and nothing awful has happened, his mind isn't flooded with Potter's thoughts, he lets out a laugh like a sob.

"I trust you," Harry says as he wraps his hand around Draco's and draws it back to the jar of salve.

They continue like that for what feels like hours, but is likely only a few minutes. Slow, tentative, heated touches as Draco rubs ointment into Potter's broken and bruised skin, as he wraps bandages around the worst of the cuts, covering Potter's chest in a criss-cross of unbroken white. When he's finished, his hands are smeared with blood and healing salve, and when he meets Potter's too-green, too-bright eyes, Draco thinks that Potter wasn't the one saved tonight.

* * *

Draco wakes to pain all along his side and something pulling at his robes. He groans and rolls onto his back, then stares with annoyance at the spectral Jack Russell jerking its head back and forth, Draco's robes trapped in its teeth.

"Tell Ron I'm fine," Harry says from the couch with a groan. "We're on our way back today."

The Patronus lets go of Draco's robe, barks happily, then disappears. Sighing, Draco lets his head fall back onto the stone floor.

"You didn't have to sleep down there."

"I didn't want to leave you alone. You've been through an ordeal."

"So've you."

Draco scoffs. "I'm not the one covered in bruises."

"You know you probably are after sleeping down there all night."

"I'll be fine."

"You need to take better care of yourself."

"Pot, kettle." Groaning, Draco forces himself to sit up. The stone is cold against his hands, and he realizes with a shock that he'd slept without his gloves on. They'd fallen to the floor at some point in the night, and he slides them on, feeling like he can breathe easier as soon as he does.

"We need to get you home before Weasley sends the troops in after us." He stands, groaning as his bones and muscles complain about the motion. "Do you think you can Apparate today?"

"Draco. I… We should talk."

He looks down at Harry, still shirtless, sprawled across the sofa like an offering in white. His eyes, still fogged with sleep, hold something like hope or heat in their green depths. Draco doesn't know what to think about it, but his breath is suddenly no longer easy.

"There'll be time to talk later," he forces out. "Let's get home first. I need a shower."

"There's a shower here."

"I don't…" He holds his hand out to Harry, who takes it. Draco pulls him from the couch, and as Harry rises to his feet, they end up nearly chest-to-chest, close enough that Draco can nearly taste Harry's mouth.

"We should talk." Harry's eyes linger on Draco's lips. "Before we can't anymore."

"I'm not going to disappear as soon as we're back in England, Potter. You know where to find me if you want a chat."

"That's not what I meant."

Heat swirls through Draco. His hand is still clasping Harry's, though he shifts his palm so that their fingers touch, then interlace. It's a bit awkward, the thick, padded leather of his gloves not quite fitting perfectly in the space between Potter's fingers. If he weren't wearing them, though, Draco thinks their hands might slot together like puzzle pieces, two parts finding their place in the greater picture, a perfect fit.

"I know." He leans in, lets his nose brush against the side of Harry's. 

His magic is only in his fingers, so he takes his time learning the shape of Harry's mouth, the way it moves against his own with soft, questing touches. His tongue touches the divot of Harry's upper lip, slowly tracing the plump curve of the bottom before Draco takes it between his teeth with a gentle bite. It steals a gasp from Harry's mouth, and Draco drinks it down like Ogden's, the taste burning through his throat and chest.

He pulls away, and Harry chases after, lips questing and eyes shut. "We should talk," Draco says quietly, his free hand pressed to the bandages covering Harry's chest, stopping him. "And when you're healed, we can do more."

"You promise."

"You trust me."

"I do."

Draco squeezes Harry's hand, then leans in for another slow kiss that leaves them both breathing heavily against each other's mouths. "Let's go home."

* * *

It's almost always dark in the Department of Mysteries. But buried in the Department's smallest, most remote office, there's a light. It's not blindingly bright, not anymore. Instead, it's the soft glow of candlelight at midnight or of a fire banked to embers. It's warmth and safety, the touch of bare hands against skin, the peace of silence and shared breaths. No one has an explanation for the phenomenon, no clear idea when it changed. Some point to the spells that fill the Department, blame it on some unforeseen consequence of magic melding with magic. Others note the electric lights that some enterprising member of the Department of Muggle Artifacts had put in. Most agree it's somewhere between the two.

But occasionally—when the day is ending and the Unspeakables in the hallways have finished contemplating Love and Time and History—light seeps from that small space and fills its occupants like a sunrise. It warms and shelters and grows to a soft, pulsing thing that one can feel in their chest, like a heartbeat where pulse meets pulse. There's no warning, no explanation. The light is as much of a mystery as the dark, but there's one constant with it.

When the Department of Mysteries fills with light, new magic is born.

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILER: Draco forcefully rips the memories first from Lucius's, then a Death Eater's, minds, leaving them in catatonic states.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Massive thank yous to my brilliant, talented, and delightful betas: Lis and Nat. You all make me a better writer and a better person.
> 
> And huge thanks to ZandraGorin for a gorgeous prompt. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to write it. I hope it lives up to your imagination.
> 
> * * *
> 
> 💋 This work is part of the Taste of Smut Fest, a Harry Potter-centered fest dedicated to the five senses: taste, touch, smell, hearing, and sight. 
> 
> If you’ve enjoyed this work, please do shower our content creators with kudos and comments! 💌
> 
> [Please check out the fest's tumblr for more posts and updates](https://tasteofsmut.tumblr.com/)


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